March: Mental Health Awareness Books

Hey everyone, I hope you’re keeping safe and healthy -physically and emotionally-.

March is Mental Health Awareness month and I wanted to share some reads that reflect this. Some may not be good for your mental health to read, so please don’t feel this list is at all necessary to even glance at if you find it might be triggering for you.

The Books I’ve read that I recommend

Content/Trigger Warnings: Sexual Abuse, Repressed Memories, Dangerous Behaviour due to suppression of memories and PTSD of abuse.

I do love this book, but, it’s not as insightful as some of the others we’re given these days so I’ve listed it first, it’s worth a read if you’ve seen the movie if you’re like me and like to see the differences, and I do have a lot of sympathy for Charlie and how he handles his feelings. It’s scary for him because he has all these feelings and doesn’t know how to express them, and the memories slowly kind of unfold to reveal horrible truths he’d been trying to hide.

Content/Trigger Warnings [From the Author]: Trigger Warning & A Note to My Readers:

(You will find this note at the beginning of this book as well.)

For my friends who have experienced trauma, a warning—this story may be triggering. I have done my best to approach the mental health topics addressed in this book in the most sensitive and caring way possible. But even all the research and sensitivity readers in the world would never make it so I could approach every aspect of mental health from every perspective. Your experience is unique to you.

Potential triggers include suicide, self-harm, emotional abuse, anxiety, depression, PTSD, eating disorders, and unwanted/non-consensual advances.

With that said, while some of what I have written comes from research and some from the caring eyes of sensitivity readers who have lived through many of these experiences, other pieces come from my own personal experience with emotional trauma. If you have lost a loved one, I’m with you. If you face depression or anxiety, my heart aches with you in a truly personal way. If you have ever felt misunderstood for these things or simply wanted to escape altogether—I understand.

For the girl who is not okay. For the boy who wonders if it will ever get better. This story is for you.

My hope is that Coral’s tale may be a small pinprick of light in your darkness—a reminder that you are seen. You are loved. You are not alone. You are not nothing, my friend. And neither am I.

Sincerely,

Sara Ella

A really thoughtful novel on the aspects of mental health and a beautiful ode to Hans Christian Anderson’s original ‘Little Mermaid’ tale. I seriously thought this was such a beautiful book and appreciate how much thought Ella put into recognizing the importance of mental health and how it can affect either/both parties in a relationship. She also was thoughtful enough to give her readers a thorough trigger warning for this book.

Content/Trigger Warnings from the Author’s Site: Depression, mood swings, references to suicidal ideation, heart attack

This was a truly beautiful book, it was a tribute from Akemi Dawn Bowman to mental health, dreams, and creativity. I loved the duality of Harley’s mental health and her cultural identity, they each were part of her reasons she felt the Circus was the place for her, someplace to call home because it contains those who were different. I could deeply relate to her, even despite the age difference between Harley’s youth and my…haha lack of it. It was her insecurities, her emotions as part of her mental health, and even the cultural identity issues. I wanted to desperately give this book to sixteen-year-old me, to say that everyone’s normal was different, that you were not alone, but, the best I can do is recommend this to anyone who has ever felt alone due to being different [whether through mental health, cultural heritage disassociation, or just for not fitting in]. I loved the show of the relationship between Harley and her parents, the growth between them, and especially the connection to her family as a whole as it changed through the book.

**This is my most highly recommended for the very few books I’ve read with mental health as a focus.**